Trivia / Batman: Arkham Asylum

• Acting for Two:
  • Kevin Conroy voices both Batman and his father Thomas Wayne.
  • Tom Kane plays Commissioner Gordon, Quincy Sharp and Louie Green.
  • Alongside the iconic Joker, Mark Hamill plays Scarface.
  • In addition to Killer Croc, Steve Blum voices many incidental voices, with a noticeable instance in the introductory sequence with the doctor yelling at a guard to take the Joker away after the Joker offends the doctor by offering to drop his pants.
  • Wally Wingert voices not only the Riddler, but also the police officer who arrests him once you find all the Riddler trophies.
  • Kimberly Brooks voices Oracle, Dr. Cassidy and young Bruce Wayne.
  • Tasia Valenza voices Poison Ivy and Martha Wayne.
  • Danny Jacobs voices Victor Zsasz, Frank Boles and Robert Stirling.
  • Duane R. Shepard voices Aaron Cash and numerous henchmen.
  • Fred Tatasciore voices Bane and numerous henchmen and Arkham staff.
• Breakthrough Hit: This game helped put Rocksteady Studios on the map.
• Contest Winner Cameo: There is a set of stairs near Clayface's cell that lead to a cell where a creepy prisoner is held. He is actually the winner of a GameSpot contest in which the winner got their face and name put in the game. His name, Luke Oliver, shows up on the Joker's party list.
• Creator Backlash: While not explicitly rejected, Rocksteady would regret how overpowered the Detective Vision turned out to be. As there turned out to be numerous reports of players playing the whole game with the feature on; thereby on obscuring the game’s impressive graphics and art style under a filter. Future Arkham games would Nerf detective vision by disabling certain HUD elements and reducing visibility when it's turned on.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Kimberly Brooks voices Young!Bruce.
• End of an Era: This is the final time Arleen Sorkin has voiced Harley Quinn before her death in 2023. Following this, she has mainly been voiced by Tara Strong, with other actresses like Hynden Walch, Laura Bailey, Melissa Rauch, Kaley Cuoco, among others.
• Executive Meddling: Producers forced Kevin Conroy to use his regular speaking voice for this game. He'd go back to using his trademark gruff Batman voice in the two sequels.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The Captain America: Super Soldier game copies this game's basic fighting engine (though not quite as well), with a counter, dodge, stun, and attack button. It also tries to copy the Metroidvania style layout, but to less success. Still, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
  • The movie-licensed game based on The Amazing Spider-Man 2012 film goes further in copying Arkham Asylum. In addition to having the same combat system as Arkham Asylum, there are also patient interview tapes (redubbed "audio evidence tapes") and a level where Spider-Man rescues doctors from escaped patients in an asylum. The devs openly admit they used Arkham Asylum's combat because they felt it was a good fit for Spider-Man.
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor drew its combat from the Arkham games, and they also sought to make a licensed product entirely separate from the movies and more suited to the videogame medium, which they saw Arkham Asylum as an example of it being done right.
  • The combat system in the Mad Max (2015) licensed game was frequently compared to the combat in this game.
  • In a less flattering example, Ride to Hell: Retribution used a greatly simplified version of the combat system.
  • Spider-Man (PS4) uses a much more advance version of its combat system, with Spidey being a lot more acrobatic and high-flying than it. It also has a Predator Mode style of gameplay, where you do the same thing as here. The devs even admitted they used it as a template, and the combat has been said to fit more with Spidey than Bats from the get-go.
• In Memoriam: The Nintendo Switch ports of Asylum in 2023 are dedicated to Batman's voice actor Kevin Conroy, who passed away from intestinal cancer in November 2022, and Harley Quinn's voice actor Arleen Sorkin, who passed away from pneumonia and multiple sclerosis in August 2023.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Arkham Asylum was going to be a Rhythm Game, where the fight scenes would become upbeat 2D dance scenes and you would have to press the right colored buttons on cue, almost like in Rock Band. This whole idea came from these two stories from the developers and from director Sefton Hill. You can still see traces of this in the freeflow combat sections, which do feel rather like a rhythm game at points.^note  You can mash like hell during fight sequences and do alright, but the game rewards you with stronger attacks and more XP for timing your strikes, not getting hit, and not whiffing on attacks, which requires a more methodical, rhythmic pace of attack.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Most of the dialogue from Harley Quinn's tapes is an almost word for word reproduction of Batman: The Animated Series' Paul Dini's original origin story for Harley Quinn, Mad Love.
  • The Arkham Care tie-in website lists its partners as Wayne Enterprises for the computer and security systems and Ace Chemical Processing for pharmaeceuticals. The factory was the birthplace of the Joker, when he fell into a vat of acid that turned his hair green, and his skin chalk white. Probably.
• No Port For You: The free "Play as Joker" DLC is only available on the PS3 and MacOSX versions. That said, the files to play as the Joker on the Mac version have been extracted so one could mod the DLC into the PC version. While a playable Joker never made it to the Xbox 360 ports, the Return to Arkham remaster for the Xbox One has the Joker DLC fully available.
• Role Reprise:
  • From Batman: The Animated Series, Kevin Conroy reprises the roles of Batman and Thomas Wayne, Mark Hamill reprises the role of the Joker, and Arleen Sorkin reprises the role of Harley Quinn.
  • In the French dub, several voice actors from previous adaptations reprise their roles here:
    • From the DC Animated Universe: Pierre Hatet as the Joker, Jean-Claude Sachot as Commissioner Gordon and Bane, Vincent Violette as the Scarecrow, and Bruno Dubernat as Killer Croc.
    • From The Batman: In addition to the Joker and Gordon, Adrien Antoine as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
• What Could Have Been: Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter were both in consideration to be included in this game. The latter would've appeared inside a hedge maze at the Botanical Gardens where Batman would confront him while also having to worry about Poison Ivy controlling the maze's plants to attack him. Both would be saved for the game's sequel.
• Viral Marketing: Gotham City Municipal's Website, with a hidden Alternate Reality Game. Sadly seems to be offline now.

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